No one said you had to stop researching in order to start writing. But they also didn’t say you had to wait until your research was done before you could started your writing. In today’s Storylines, we’ll discuss the clash between your research and writing and how it’s affecting your ability to write and finish your family history stories.
A couple of weeks ago, I told you how Ancestor Profiles are the perfect place to start. They are the ideal format for beginning your family history writing journey. You can watch the episode, What is an Ancestor Profile? here.
If you are already writing profiles, I ask you this. Are your profiles an information dump?
If you haven’t started writing them yet, would you prefer to write a profile that engages your readers instead of boring them?
Too many profiles are just a big yawn to our family members. It’s time to change that. It just doesn’t have to be that way. In today’s video, we discuss some key components that need to be included in your ancestor’s profile to elevate them from stilted and stale to entertaining.
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It can be overwhelming writing that first ancestor story. Who do you start with, how do you start? How do you know what to write? The best way to relieve your anxiety is to have a plan in place before you begin to write. Preparation is key.
I encourage you to do some preliminary homework like mapping out your story, or creating a scene guide before you start. I would also suggest gathering the details of your ancestor’s life in addition to some social history of the time and place to help build your story
Take some time before you begin to write your first draft and enlist these 4 steps. Together they will help you to pre-plan your first family history story
draft.
I encourage you to do some preliminary homework like mapping out your story, or creating a scene guide before you start. I would also suggest gathering the details of your ancestor’s life in addition to some social history of the time and place to help build your story.
1.Choose one ancestor, one story
First and foremost, choose a single ancestor to write about. Don’t try to write four hundred years of history or about every ancestor in a single
new writers line in one story. Break your family history down into small manageable chunks; consider one ancestor, one story at a time. Once you’ve chosen the ancestor writers first you wish to start with complete a character profile and develop a timeline of their life. Character profiles help you understand your ancestor intimately and provide you with essential details that will be necessary for bringing to life your ancestor on the page. Timelines help you to identify important moments and accomplishments in your ancestor’s life. Shape the narrative around a big accomplishment.
2. Take some time to outline your story.
Before you begin to write it’s beneficial to know where your story will start and where it will end along with everything in between. If you take some time upfront to plan your story map and outline the critical events in your ancestor’s life, it will go along way to eliminating writer’s block. With a well thought out story plan you’ll know exactly what you need to write each day.
3. Set a daily writing goal
Many first-time writers find themselves dragging out that first draft for weeks, months even sometimes years. Writing a first draft in a reasonable amount of time is about the numbers. Do the math in advance and decide how many words you plan to write daily, giving yourself a realistic deadline for your first draft. By writing daily and with a word count goal, you’ll keep yourself on track to complete your mission, whether it’s a 20,000-word short story for your legacy family history book or an 80,000-word epic family history novel. Identify in advance your project and the wordcount. Do the math. Time yourself. Write a small scene about something you saw yesterday. Just write. Set the timer on your phone for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes how many words did you write? Multiply that by 4. That is how many words you can write in an hour. Now to complete a 20,000-word story in 30 days, do the math. How long do you need to commit to writing each day? Now, the only thing left is clearing the time in your schedule.
4.Develop a daily writing routine
A daily writing routine is essential to completing a first draft and making writing a part of your life. This is usually where most new writers fall down. By finding the environment, tools, and time of day that works best for you, you can turn writing into a regular part of your everyday life. Habits will help you to center yourself in the writing process quickly and maintain your focus pushing away distractions. Turn off the TV, cell phones and all social media. Create a writing space in your home. If that’s not possible, find a quiet spot at the local library or head to the nearest coffee shop. If one place doesn’t work then try another. But find a space that allows you focused writing time, then commit to a specific time every day.
Remember first drafts are messy. Don’t look for perfection in your first draft. It just about getting the basic story down.
If you want to meet with success this year, you need to make writing your family history stories a priority, and you need to come with a plan. We cover all 10 of these steps in detail with worksheets in our Family History Writing Challenge Prep Course.
This year, score big in the Family History Writing Challenge. Be ready to write.
In part one of our series Creating a Family History Book, we looked at identifying our dream of creating a family history book in 2018 along with recognizing our motivations behind the dream. I hope you took the time to identify your vision in specifics and to write it down using our template.
Now it’s time to move forward and to flesh out the eight milestone goals that will help you move closer to accomplishing that dream.
In my work of writing a family history book, I realized there are eight key goals that I had to meet along the way. I also realized it was essential to think and plan out each of those goals in advance before I began to write.
Let’s identify these 8 milestone goals. They will be your guide to creating a family history book. You won’t necessarily complete these goals in this order, but for the sake of planning your project, I recommend working through them in this order.
For each of these milestone goals, we want to make sure they are A SMART Goal. All goals should have the same common elements. They should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and have a target and we are going to add one more element, accountable making them A SMART Goal.
Let’s define each of these elements.
A- Accountable.
Who is going to keep you on task? Find an accountability buddy, or join a writing group. Somebody or some who will keep you focused on a regular basis for each of these milestone goals. They can be different people for each of these goals.
S – Specific.
Be as detailed as possible about what this goal is and what it will include. Write out the goal in specifics.
M- Measurable.
How will you measure your progress? Create a way of checking off or measuring your progress.
A-Actionable.
Each of these goals should be easily broken down into actionable tasks.
R-Realistic
Don’t take on more than you can chew. If you have never written a story before don’t start out by thinking you’re going to write an epic novel. Start out with short stories or ancestor profiles. Be realistic about your time and skills. If you’ve never written a story before taking a writing class might be a task you need to add to your project timeline.
T-Target.
Every goal should have a deadline, not just one overall deadline. These dates will keep you motivated and on task along the way.
In Part 3, we will organize our Milestone Goals into an action plan to keep you focused and on task.
Part 1: Identifying Your Dream
Part 2: Fleshing out the 8 Milestone Goals
Part 3: Creating an Action Plan
Part 4: Establishing Daily Habits
I’m a big believer that to accomplish your dreams you need goals and a plan.
For those of you who are dreaming about creating a family history book in 2018, our next four posts are designed with you in mind. We are going to close out 2017 and begin 2018 with developing a plan to turn your family history book dream into a reality.
Over December and January, we will cover the following in a 4-part series.
Step One. Identify your dream and the purpose behind the dream
Step Two. Identify and set your goals needed to make your family history book a reality
Step Three. Make an action plan and timeline for accomplishing these goals.
Step Four. Set up the daily habits required to accomplish your goals.
Each part will come with a downloadable template to help you flesh out your plan on paper.
Today, we start with Part 1 – The Dream, and its Purpose.
Your dream is to write a family history book. But why do you want to write a family history book? It’s not enough to just have the idea. You must also identify the purpose and passion behind your vision, any vision including creating a family history book.
When you have a clear sense of the purpose of your project it enables you to focus your efforts. It compels you to stay on task and push forward when the work might become difficult or overwhelming.
Knowing why you want to create a family history book is an essential first step in figuring out how to achieve this dream.
Only when you know the why will you find the courage to take risks needed to make it happened, to stay motivated when the road becomes tough and to take on a challenging yet very rewarding trajectory.
To help you identify your own purpose behind wanting to create a family history book I thought I would share some of the reasons that got me started in writing family history but also why I continue to make it a significant part of my life.
These were the three significant purposes that fed my dream to create a family history book. You may have other reasons for wanting to create a book. The point here is to acknowledge those motives. These larger purposes will feed you throughout your writing journey. When you have a drive and desire for your project, you’re more likely to stick with it.
An essential component in making your dreams a reality is to write them down. There is considerable evidence to support the fact if you write down your thoughts and goals you are more likely to transform those desires into reality. It also suggests that if you share your written goals with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed it will aid you in meeting with success.
Therefore, each step along the way in this 4-part series, I will provide you with a template you can download and print off and fill in so that you have your dream, purposes, goals and action steps all written down. Not only will this help you take your ideas from the thinking stage to putting them on paper and making them concrete you’ll also have a written plan to help you proceed.
Let’s start by identifying your dream to create a family history book and the purpose behind your vision. Download the Dream and Purpose Template and fill it in.
Your Dream and Purpose Template
Watch for our next installment as we take your dream and begin to identify the goals needed to make it a reality.
